Just blocks away from where he was arrested more than a half-century ago, Rep. John Lewis stood before a room of state and national leaders gathered Saturday at the new Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.

The 78-year-old activist reflected on the courageous, determined work of the Mississippi Freedom Riders, who joined forces to fight segregation and empower African-Americans to vote in the 1960s.

Lewis, a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, said he was on the second Greyhound bus coming from Montgomery to Jackson on May 24, 1961. When he headed to the “whites only” men’s bathroom at the bus station in Jackson, he was arrested.

“That was my welcome to the state of Mississippi,’’ said the Democratic congressman from Georgia.

"Where did it lead?" Lewis asked of the efforts Saturday, before making a connection to the first African-American president, Barack Obama.

"1961, the same year President Obama was born ... I went straight to jail," said.

"I've been picking them up ever since. As long as I have breath in my body, I will speak up and speak out and I will find a way to get in trouble. Good trouble. Necessary trouble," Lewis said defiantly as attendees stood in applause.

Lewis was on stage with fellow U.S. Congressman Bennie Thompson, the longest-serving elected African-American in Mississippi, Derrick Johnson, the head of the NAACP, and others at a christening of the recently opened Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, sponsored by the private group Friends of Mississippi Civil Rights.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, just the fourth African-American elected to the U.S. Senate, gave a lengthy speech covering a litany of what he called modern-day civil rights issues:

Voter disenfranchisement

Declining environmental protections

Unequally applied drug laws

The practice of redlining, or refusal to provide loans or insurance to poor Americans

The undermining of The Affordable Care Act and health insurance for low-income Americans

Existing segregation

Wage deflation: "Black Americans are the only racial group in America now that is making less money than they were in 2000," Booker said.

A growing wage gap between white and black workers: "It has not been this wide since 1979," Booker said.

An unemployment rate that is still more than double for African-Americans than it is for whites

"This is not a Mississippi museum. This is America's museum. This is essential for our country to advance because you cannot advance as a nation if you aren't willing to air the truth. Expose it to light," Booker said.

Lewis and the other speakers didn't address President Trump by name but did say they were discouraged by events at the national level. Lewis, whose 1961 jail mugshot hangs in a gallery of the museum devoted to the "Freedom Riders," encouraged the audience to walk through the museum, to be mindful of the actions others took and apply it to their own lives and others.

"I truly believe what's going on now is a threat to our entire nation. If you walk through this museum you will not give up. You will not lose that sense of hope," he said.

The official opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights and history museums in December received high praise from Trump and other state leaders, but — in large part — it was also marked by who wasn't there and what wasn't discussed.

Lewis and Thompson announced at the time they would not attend the opening after Republican Gov. Phil Bryant extended an invitation to the president.

Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba also boycotted the original museum opening. Saturday, the mayor found solidarity with Lewis, as they briefly spoke to one another on stage.

"I wanted to let you know personally now that you are in Jackson, that we as a city are going to be the most radical city on the planet," Lumumba said.

At the symposium, Lewis also invoked the recent Parkland school massacre that took 17 lives. He called out to political leaders on stage and in the audience to join him on March 24 in Washington, D.C. for the "March for Our Lives" rally, organized by the teenage survivors.

The congressmen has long supported gun-safety legislation. Following the Orlando nightclub shooting that took 50 lives, Lewis led a sit-in demanding House Speaker Paul Ryan allow a vote on gun-safety legislation.

Lewis appealed to Ryan on Twitter last week: "Mr. Speaker, the time for action is now. We know the facts. There are too many guns. How many more children must die? How many more students? How many more teachers? People who are not willing to lead should get out of the way," he said.

Lewis was also instrumental in the establishment and opening in 2016 of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, a combination of patience and resilience that took 28 years to achieve.

Thompson was 13 when Lewis first came to Jackson.Thompson, too, has made a career of fighting for civil rights.

The congressman, who represents the only majority African-American district in the state, filed a lawsuit to increase funding at Mississippi's historically black universities. The suit led to a $503 million settlement to be distributed over a 17-year period to Alcorn State, Jackson State and Mississippi Valley State.

In 1998, he protested discriminatory hiring practices of the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks. In 2000, he created the National Center for Minority Health and Health Care Disparities law.

The events Saturday were preceded by a gala Friday night honoring Lewis, Thompson and three other civil rights activists: Ruby Bridges Hall, a native of Tylertown, who became the first African-American child to enroll in an elementary school in New Orleans in 1960; Rita Schwerner Bender, who demanded answers after her first husband, Michael Schwerner, was one of three civil-rights workers killed by Ku Klux Klansmen in the state in 1964; and former state Rep. Robert Clark, who in 1967 became the first African-American of the 20th Century to win a seat in the Mississippi Legislature.

Said Hall, during the event, “When I think about our babies today and them not being safe in school, I think that should be the next civil rights movement, you know, is to ban the assault weapons so that our babies can be safe.”

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U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., readies to cut a birthday cake given to him by the organizers of the Friends of Mississippi Civil Rights gala Friday, Feb. 23, 2018 in Jackson, Miss. Lewis and four other civil rights veterans were honored. Lewis traveled to Mississippi in 1961, was arrested and jailed with other Freedom Riders, black and white, who challenged segregation in a bus station. He continued working for racial equality in Mississippi and across the South in the 1960s, and as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he helped organize the 1963 March on Washington. Rogelio V. Solis, AP

Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba takes a moment to let civil rights icon and longtime Georgia Congressman John Lewis know the mayor is committed to following Lewis' lead in making Jackson "the most radical city on the planet." Justin Vicory/Clarion Ledger

U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., right hugs friend and fellow civil rights veteran Rims Barber, of the Mississippi Human Services Coalition, prior to the Friends of Mississippi Civil Rights gala Friday, Feb. 23, 2018 in Jackson, Miss. Lewis and four other civil rights veterans were honored. Lewis traveled to Mississippi in 1961, was arrested and jailed with other Freedom Riders, black and white, who challenged segregation in a bus station. He continued working for racial equality in Mississippi and across the South in the 1960s, and as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he helped organize the 1963 March on Washington. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis) Rogelio V. Solis, AP

Ruby Bridges Hall, a Tylertown, Miss., native who faced threats and ostracism when she became the first black child to integrate a public school in New Orleans in 1960, speaks with reporters prior to the Friends of Mississippi Civil Rights gala Friday, Feb. 23, 2018 in Jackson, Miss., where she and four other civil rights veterans were honored. Rogelio V. Solis, AP

Former state Rep. Robert Clark, who in 1967 became the first African-American of the 20th century to win a seat in the Mississippi Legislature, speaks with reporters prior to the Friends of Mississippi Civil Rights gala Friday, Feb. 23, 2018 in Jackson, Miss., where he was one of five civil rights veterans honored. Rogelio V. Solis, AP

Rita Schwerner Bender, whose first husband, Michael Schwerner, and two other activists, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman, were killed outside Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 1964 — a case that became known by its FBI name, "Mississippi Burning," speaks with reporters prior to the Friends of Mississippi Civil Rights gala Friday, Feb. 23, 2018 in Jackson, Miss., she and four other civil rights veterans were honored. Rogelio V. Solis, AP

U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., speaks with reporters prior to the Friends of Mississippi Civil Rights gala Friday, Feb. 23, 2018 in Jackson, Miss., where he and four other civil rights veterans were honored. Lewis traveled to Mississippi in 1961, was arrested and jailed with other Freedom Riders, black and white, who challenged segregation in a bus station. He continued working for racial equality in Mississippi and across the South in the 1960s, and as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he helped organize the 1963 March on Washington. Rogelio V. Solis, AP

Ruby Bridges Hall, a Tylertown, Miss., native who faced threats and ostracism when she became the first black child to integrate a public school in New Orleans in 1960, listens as Gabriel Owens, 7, of Madison, Miss., performs her role as a young Hall, prior to the Friends of Mississippi Civil Rights gala Friday, Feb. 23, 2018 in Jackson, Miss., where she and four other civil rights veterans were honored. Rogelio V. Solis, AP